The COVID-19 pandemic created an unprecedented opportunity to pilot an online approach to medical education and compare its impact on blended and face-to-face learning. The blended learning group performed significantly better in all clinical skill domains. Furthermore, our 2021 online learners bridged the theory-practice gap effectively and demonstrated higher-level transfer and knowledge retention than the 2019 face-to-face learners. Medical education needs to advocate a structural shift [61] to decentralise the classroom and provide an efficient and economical learning environment [48] that accommodates large cohorts [62].
